Corporate America is making early, tentative bets that the so-called blockchain-ledger technology behind bitcoin might one day transform how banks, businesses and even smart appliances circulate money, assets and sensitive data around the world.

Bitcoin and Wall Street have been like two hostile cultures, each warily eyeing the other. But attitudes are changing as the sides get to know each other, and nowhere are the emissaries of those worlds working together more directly than at Silicon Valley's premiere start-up shop, the Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Former J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. executive Blythe Masters, best known for helping pioneer the credit-derivatives markets in the 1990s, has agreed to become the chief executive of Digital Asset Holdings LLC, a new platform for settling trades in bitcoin and other digital assets.

Bitcoin core developer Jeff Garzik’s bold plan to put mini satellites into orbit to provide secure, remote backup for the digital currency’s growing store of critical data has taken a step close to becoming a reality.

A flurry of Federal Reserve speaking engagements mid-week should help shed light on where the consensus lies within the Fed on when and how aggressively to start raising rates. We also end out the week with the latest labor market report, which will function as another guide on the outlook for rates.

Nasdaq has agreed to provide New York-based startup Noble Markets with core technology to power a new marketplace aimed at allowing companies and institutional investors such as hedge funds to trade bitcoin and related digital-currency assets.

Bitreserve, which seeks to combine the low transaction costs of bitcoin technology with the backing of a multicurrency asset reserve to control exchange-rate volatility, is opening up a new front a battle to disrupt the $500 billion international remittance market.